


They Liked Things Just So

by nombre_appelido



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Trans Female Character, the author is talking entirely out of their own ass, the author isn't trans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nombre_appelido/pseuds/nombre_appelido
Summary: at this point i have no excuse for being so bad at summaries
Kudos: 3





	They Liked Things Just So

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gleedegrassibigfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gleedegrassibigfan/gifts).



> i want to open by saying that i am not trans, or a trans woman. i am also not latinx. if i was disrespectful at any point, even in the smallest way imaginable, let me know in the comments and i'll fix it.
> 
> this is for gleedegrassibigfan. they probably don't remember me but you gave some spicy advice in my tumblr days. i will always respect how you championed for autistic matteo, and for the awareness and betterment of all autistic people, a group that am not a member of.

my parents were obsessed with keeping things perfect.

the house and car were always spotless. our appearances were clean and perfect. grades were perfect, our friends were perfect, everything was just so.

my sister fit into this perfectly. she craved structure and order. she had an organized, controlling nature like our parents; she never seemed to mind that they controlled our lives.

i did not fit in so well. 

i was a messy, rambunctious child. i never stayed in one place for more than a few seconds. i was constantly chattering and i was very independent.

as i got older, i developed a love of painting, and often neglected schoolwork to spend time on my craft. i made friends with “bad kids.” i didn’t bother cleaning up my appearance.

i was the exact opposite of what my parents wanted.

the worst thing was, i think they could have taken all that. they didn’t  _ really  _ mind my messy room and poor grades and bad friends. i was their son, after all, so nothing else mattered.

except i wasn’t their son.

i was their daughter. and when i kept my hair grown out long and did my best to wear feminine clothing, because what they bought was wrongwrongwrong, they began to wonder.

at school, i quietly began calling myself a different name--regina. most of my teachers were very accepting and hid it from my parents, and all of my friends were wonderful.

_ most _ doesn’t equal  _ all _ , though.

it was my physics teacher. she was such a gentle woman who taught so well. i thought she got it.

but i guess not.

maybe, though, i’m not being fair. maybe she thought it was a joke, or got scared. maybe she was confused when i told her, and then blabbed.

she might have even been trying to help.

yeah, no, fuck her.

she told my parents, and i guess it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. they saw my behavior in a different light, and even though they could take their  _ son _ being an oddball, they couldn’t take it from their daughter. so i got kicked out.

do i sound bitter? i’m not bitter.

my sister was a fair bit older than me, so when i got kicked out my sophomore year, she’d already graduated college.

she’d always sided with them, my whole life. she had been their puppet in my eyes. but i had nowhere else to go, so i called her. i mean, she was my sister. that had to count for something, right?

it did.

she was firmly in my corner on this one, and she who had been my greatest enemy gave me a place to stay and helped me find a new school, and a therapist, and life was good. i started hrt my junior year and my sister didn’t care how i dressed or behaved, or what friends i had.

funnily enough, doing well in school comes a lot easier when you’re not hiding your identity and crying yourself to sleep every night. who knew?

in my senior year, though, things changed.

my sister had a steady girlfriend, and they wanted to move in together. i was not going to stay around when they did. so i moved into a shared apartment with some very cool flatmates.

the problem was, i had no way to pay for it. my sister hadn’t charged me a dime to stay with her so my job covered my treatments and nothing else. it couldn’t cover both hrt and bills, so i had three options: drop out of school, stop treatments, or call my parents. i couldn’t afford to drop out of school, and i’d sooner die than stop hrt, so i had to call my parents.

i had a panic attack just before doing it. _**what if they don’t call me regina? what if they don’t pick up at all? i haven’t called them in two years! what if they refuse?**_

lisa was a blessing. she helped me through the attack and ength and hit the call button, praying to every god in the known universe that they’d  _ pick up  _ and call me by my name--

“hello. this is maria vasquez, who is speaking?”

“regina.”

“regina--?”

“vasquez. regina vasquez, your daughter.”

“hello, m’ija. would you like to come over for dinner?”

i began crying tears of relief.

“yeah, mom, that sounds great.”

“how does thursday at four sound? i’ll force your father to be there.”

“perfect, perfect. chao.”

“chao, cariña.”

she hung up.

i began outwardly sobbing. lisa ran in from the next room, worried.

“did it go ba--”

“she called me m’ija.” and then i broke down crying again.

lisa threw the marshmallows at me, ordered three pizzas, and called henry and nora, saying, “if you don’t come for dinner tonight i’ll kill you.”

henry and nora had been only out shopping, but when they heard about what happened, we danced in the kitchen.

thursday came. i went for dinner in a sundress. 

my mom answered the door, and she was like how she had been over the call. i hadn’t worried about her.

my dad was a different story.

he was sitting at the kitchen table and when he saw me, i held my breath.

he did not say anything for a while.

and then he sighed, “buenas tardes, regina.”

dinner went fabulously. they agreed to pay. they fumbled at times, but they did their best. and when my sister showed up later with her girlfriend, they didn’t even blink.

my parents always liked things just so. but in the end, it didn’t matter.

**Author's Note:**

> regina and maria aren't part of fandoms, they just have character tags. i don't know what they're associated with but i don't know about it, i just like to get those sweet sweet fandom listings.


End file.
